Mirrors
by TheInvisibleQuestion
Summary: After saving her old universe one last time, Rose Tyler is left at Bad Wolf Bay with the one-heart wonder. As she tries to cope with this other Doctor, Rose starts to see things in the mirror. First in the Pete's World series. Complete.
1. John Smith

_**Preface:** Playing in Auntie Beeb's sandbox._

* * *

><p><em>He<em>_'__s __too __dangerous__... __he __needs __you__... __I__'__m __him__..._

The Doctor's words echoed through Rose's mind, reducing Jackie's frenzied mobile chatter to background noise.

_I __look __like __him_. Rose couldn't deny that this man, the Doctor's clone with one heart, one life, and no chance at regeneration, looked exactly like the man who'd dematerialised half an hour before, leaving Rose and Jackie stranded on a Norwegian beach with the one-heart wonder. And not just any Norwegian beach, either. No, the Doctor and Donna Noble had left them on the sands of Bad Wolf Bay, the one place on this Earth Rose genuinely hated.

_I __think __like __him__. __Same __thoughts__, __same __memories_. That, however, Rose didn't believe. The man currently sitting on a rock, staring out across the ocean, did not have the same thoughts as the Doctor who'd left her behind for the last time. She'd believe that they had the same memories, but this monocardiac clone had killed an entire Dalek empire, something the fully-Time-Lord Doctor would never have done; even as the Daleks were falling into nothing, the real Doctor had run back, had tried to save Davros.

No, this wasn't the same man. He had a different body—similar on the outside, but ordinarily human on the inside—and a different mind. He'd taken the Doctor's memories, copied them into his own head, but he wasn't the same.

Even now, Rose could see it. _He __committed __genocide_... He'd done something the Doctor—_her_ Doctor—would never have done, even if it meant letting a few Dalek ships escape and terrorise worlds again. _This_ was the man Davros had named Destroyer of Worlds. _That_—the one who'd just left—was the man who'd tried to save the creator of his worst enemies.

Rose turned away from the waves to face the man on the rock. He looked at her, but neither of them said a word.

"Rose!" Jackie called, waving her phone. "Rose, honey! Your dad's sending a chopper out for us. He said they should be here in fifteen minutes, and then we'll take the zeppelin back to London in the morning."

Rose just nodded. Torchwood was sending a helicopter. They'd have a field day when she got back to London. She was sure they'd been gone longer than she felt they had, and there was the matter of the man in front of her. He was literally no-one. He had no identity.

She sighed and sat down on a rock next to him, facing him. "I hate this place," she said. "Last time I was here, I died."

He looked at her and sighed, but he didn't seem to be able to say anything.

"I don't even think it exists in the other world. Know what that means?"

He shook his head. "No," he replied quietly.

Rose felt tears burning in her eyes as she put voice to it, gave life to a theory she'd never said before. "It means that when I looked into the vortex—when I became the Bad Wolf—I knew I'd come here. I knew I'd be stuck here, in this reality." She rubbed her face with her sleeve, wiping away the tears. "That's why Jackie and Pete never had a daughter here. The Bad Wolf never let them, so there would never be two Rose Tylers. Nobody would have to choose between two versions of Rose. Nobody would have to die." She blotted her eyes with her sleeve and sniffled. "I'm the Bad Wolf. I create myself." She laughed a little. "I bet I even saw me, stranded on this godforsaken stretch of sand with my mum and the one-heart wonder, who got unceremoniously dumped in another universe with nothing but his trainers and a silly blue suit."

He shook his head. "He didn't leave me with nothing. I've got the brains, remember?"

"Right."

Jackie approached them then, finally detached from her mobile. "Pete's having the guest room made up for you for now, Doctor. Torchwood's gonna have a field day, he says."

"I'm sure they are," the Doctor-clone replied. Rose knew that look: he wasn't really paying much attention to whatever was going on outside his head. For once in her life, Rose didn't feel compelled to try to bring him back to reality. He still wore a far-away expression as the chopper came over the cliffs nearby and landed on the beach, whipping the sea breeze into a chill wind. Rose had to cover her eyes to keep the sand out.

On the way to the hotel, Rose and the clone were silent. Jackie chatted away on her mobile. Rose thought she might be talking to Pete, or to one of the staff, since they seemed to be discussing Tony. Fifteen minutes of watching the landscape fly by, the chopper executed a smooth, near-perfect landing on a tall building in the middle of the city. Once the blades stopped spinning, Jackie shooed them into the building, where a tall, balding butler showed them to their rooms.

Rose sat on the bed in the room she was sharing with her mother (the Doctor-clone had been given the next room to himself). "I'm gonna have a shower. You should get some rest, sweetheart. I know how you don't sleep well on planes."

"In a bit," she said vaguely. She didn't mention that the concept of sleeping well had been foreign to her for a while now. She looked at the clock. It was nearing seven o'clock local time. "I'm going for a walk."

"I'll order room service, yeah?"

"Sure." Rose gave her mum a forced half-smile and walked out of the room. She knew this hotel well enough—she'd stayed here last time they'd been to the Bay—and her feet took her out to the balcony she'd spent almost three days on, the one that overlooked the city and, beyond it, the ocean.

Rose was only half-surprised to see _him_ standing there, looking out over the city with that spaced-out expression. She stood next to him, watching clouds roll in from the ocean.

"D—Doc—I can't do it," she said.

"I don't need a babysitter," he said immediately.

"That's not what I meant," she replied quickly. "I can't call you... It's _his_ name. You're not him."

"Right," he said tersely.

"What am I going to call you, then?"

He shrugged.

Rose knew he was bristling at having to be called something other than simply 'Doctor'. "Look, it's not like you're going to be saving the universe anyway. The Doctor doesn't exist in this universe. We deal with our problems on our own."

He just looked at her for a minute, then turned back to the city. He said nothing.

"I'll be in my room. Don't do anything stupid." She turned and left before he could ask what she meant. It was still too soon to go back to her room, so she wandered to some other balcony with some other view and stood looking out over some other part of the city until it started to rain and she figured it was probably time to go back and suffer through a few hours of sleep.


	2. Torchwood

**Chapter ****Two**

**Torchwood**

_Light__. __Fire__. __Pain__. __Death__. __Pain__. __Fire__. __Light__. __Life__._

Rose sprang awake. She'd been dreaming, and for once she hadn't been dreaming about the Doctor. At least, she was pretty sure it wasn't the Doctor. There was a whole rush of things she didn't understand, just before she'd woken up. All that light and fire and stuff. She got out of bed and trudged to the bathroom, running her fingers through her bed head. She looked at her grey hotel pyjamas. They weren't very flattering. She picked up her jeans and jumper off the floor and threw them back on before wandering to the lobby area on that floor for their continental breakfast. It was still early in the morning, and the zeppelin wasn't going to leave until ten, so she sat at a little table in the corner, staring into her black coffee as if she could scry out answers in it, answers to questions she didn't know how to ask.

"Can I sit here?" asked an all-too-familiar voice.

She looked up and shrugged. "If you want."

He held out a hand to her. "John Smith."

"Right." She shook his hand briefly. It felt familiar, if a little warmer than usual. "Rose Tyler."

He looked into his cup of milk. "Never had to pay much attention to eating. Takes a lot of time, this food business."

Rose nodded. "Yeah. Some people devote their whole lives to it."

"It's weird."

"Welcome to the human race," Rose said. "There are worse things than eating. Just you wait."

"What, like showering?"

"That's not so bad. I'm talking about things like haircuts."

"Why would I want to cut my hair?"

"It's going to get long if you don't cut it."

"Is it? Never had that happen before. I mean, not really. I guess my hair grew out when I was a kid, but that was a _long_ time ago."

"You were never a kid," Rose said suddenly.

"Yeah, I was. On..." he stopped. "Oh. Right."

"Do you remember everything?" she asked, looking up at him again.

John Smith met her gaze. "Everything."

"You know everything he knew."

"Yes. More, now. Learned a lot since yesterday."

"Then why'd you say your name was John Smith?"

He shrugs. "Like you said: I'm not him."

"But your name—"

"Is John Smith." His voice cut a tone of sharp finality.

"And his name?"

"Is his name. It's still the name of the last of the Time Lords and even in this universe it's a powerful name. Not to mention the walls of this universe aren't really known for their ability to keep things out... or in."

"Right." Rose stared back into her coffee. She hadn't taken a single sip of it; she'd just wanted something hot to hold between her cold hands.

John Smith also lapsed into silence. The only noises at the table were the slow sounds of eating. Every few minutes, he'd get up and get something else to eat. He only ever took a bite or two of something before moving on, like he couldn't pick what he wanted to eat, so he just ate a bit of everything. He'd eaten half a banana, three grapes, one bite each of four different kinds of pastries, a bit of scone, half a piece of bacon (he'd complained it was undercooked, but Rose was pretty sure it was almost burnt), and a slice of cheese. The remnants of his meal sat on the table. Rose just looked at them, not feeling very hungry.

"Shouldn't you eat?" he asked when she didn't even reach for his untouched grapes.

"No. I'll be sick on the zeppelin if I do."

"Oh. Will I?" he asked.

She hesitated a moment, marvelling at how little he really knew about _being_ a human. "Guess we'll find out."

"Never gotten sick from a zeppelin before. Never been sick from a plane either, and they can't be much different."

"You've never even been on a plane."

"Have so. Had biplane lessons back in 1911."

"No, you didn't," she reminded him, glancing up briefly.

He stiffened, sitting back in his chair. "Right. But I do know how to fly a plane," he said.

Rose didn't answer. The light above the table flickered right as John bumped the table just enough to cause a ripple in her coffee. The combined effect looked like a face reflected on the liquid's surface. "Weird," she muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing." She continued to stare at her coffee, trying to will the face in the coffee to come back, then laughed at the absurdity of what she was trying to do. She shook her head and pushed the coffee away. "I must be going bonkers," she said. "Trying to see faces in my coffee..." She shook her head again.

John Smith opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Jackie's arrival. "Anything good?" she asked, sounding only half-awake.

"The bananas are excellent," he replied. Rose rolled her eyes. She remembered how much the Doctor loved bananas—and then caught herself, reminded herself that this wasn't the Doctor.

His reply elicited half a smile from Jackie, who trudged off in the direction of the coffee machine. She joined them with her cup of coffee and a pastry a few minutes later. "Did you eat all that?" she asked.

"No, that's the part I didn't eat," he replied, smirking.

"Oh, stop it," Jackie smiled, though. Rose resumed staring into her coffee. "Rose, honey, I hope you didn't drink much of that."

Rose shook her head. "Just wanted something warm."

"Oh, good," Jackie said, sounding relieved. "We're going straight to Torchwood from the landing. Your father wants a word with this one." She nodded toward John Smith.

Rose groaned. Not even half an hour to stop and grab a change of clothes. She considered actually eating something just so she'd be too sick to go to Torchwood when they landed. _He__'__s __too __dangerous __to __be __left __on __his __own__... __full __of __blood __and __anger __and __revenge__... __he __needs __you__..._ The Doctor's words echoed in her mind again, and for once she wished he'd just shut up. She heaved a mental sigh and pushed all thoughts of breakfast out of her mind. She'd have to be a responsible adult and take care of John Smith, the one-heart wonder.

Maybe it wouldn't be so hard, she mused. Maybe she could get used to calling him John Smith. Maybe she could get on with her life. And maybe he'd turn out to prove himself worthy of independence, and then she'd be free of him and never have to have another reminder of the Doctor, except for those rare nights when the city lights weren't bright enough to block out the stars.

He sat next to her on the zeppelin, with Jackie on his other side, as if they were his bodyguards, defenders of the rest of the world. _Rose __Tyler__, __Defender __of __the __Earth__!_ She stared out of the window almost the entire flight, remembering her adventures with the Doctor (especially the running), remembering every time he'd ever looked at her, every time he'd said her name, every time she'd caught him watching her. She let herself cry; she didn't particularly care if anyone noticed or not. She never cared any more, except when she was at the Tower.

Tears ran down her face on the way through London because there was nothing left for her at Torchwood, not even a tiny speck of hope that she'd ever travel with the Doctor again. He'd as good as said so when he'd dumped her on the beach with his doppelgänger.

"Are you okay?" The familiar voice dragged her back to reality, back into the taxi.

"'M fine," she mumbled. "Just tired."

"You've been crying since we left Norway."

Rose didn't answer. She wished her mother would come to her rescue, but Jackie was uncharacteristically silent. She looked across the cab, but her mother wasn't there. How had she not noticed? "Where's Mum?"

"She had to go home. Tony's sick, she said."

"Lucky," Rose muttered.

"Really, Rose. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said tersely, wiping her face. "I just want to go home."

"Why don't you?"

Rose shrugged. John Smith sighed and tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Can we go to the Tyler estate instead?"

The driver nodded. "Sure thing."

"But we're supposed to go to Torchwood!"

"Torchwood can wait an hour."

"No, we're going to Torchwood."

"We're going to take you home first."

"We're going to Torchwood."

"Home."

"Torchwood!"

"Home."

"We. Are. Going. To. Torchwood!" Rose said loudly. "You don't have to take care of me. I'm _fine_. I've been taking care of myself for years now, and besides, you're not _him_. _You_ have to go to Torchwood."

The driver looked in his rear mirror. "Where are we going, Miss Tyler?"

"Torchwood Tower," she said firmly, glaring at John Smith.

The driver nodded once and then focused on the road, avoiding looking in his rear mirror any more. Rose stared out the window, her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face. She could feel John Smith's eyes on her, and she squirmed a little and turned to face the window, trying to shrug off his gaze. She didn't want to look; she knew the expression she'd find there, and she couldn't stand to face that. Not yet.

The driver let them off at the front steps of Torchwood Tower, and Rose didn't wait for the driver or John Smith to let herself out of the car. She strode up the steps to the Tower as if she owned the place—being Pete Tyler's daughter, she kind of did own the place—with John Smith in her wake. She flashed her Torchwood badge at the various checkpoints without pausing. She stopped to talk to no one, and no one so much as began to greet her; they all knew that Rose Tyler was wearing her game face, her leave-me-alone-or-you're-next face.

She was on a mission to make it to her father's office and out of the building again as fast as possible, but her mission was slightly delayed by the wait for the lift. A man in a plain grey suit stepped out of the lift, nodded to Rose, and left without a word. Rose punched the floor number and then the door button, not wanting to wait for the doors to close on their own.

It was a long way to the top of Torchwood Tower, where Pete's office was. Rose stared at the doppelgänger, who was studying the LED lights above the door that displayed which floor they were on. She felt like she should say something, but there was nothing more for her to say. When the elevator _ding_ed, Rose swept out of the lift and down the hall to Pete's office without a word. "We're back," she told the secretary.

"Welcome back, Rose." Paul, Pete's secretary, was the only person in the whole Tower outside the Tyler family who didn't give a damn what face Rose was wearing. He said hello to her every time she came up, even when she wore her most angry scowl. Paul buzzed the inner office. "Mr. Tyler, your daughter and—" Paul eyed the Doctor-ganger "—guest are here to see you."

Pete didn't respond, but the door to the inner office opened and Pete strode out. The look on his face made Rose forget that she was supposed to be angry at the world. She half-ran to him, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. "You came back," he whispered, holding his daughter. Rose buried her face in his shoulder and tried not to cry on his suit. "Where's your mother?"

"She went home. Tony's sick, I guess," Rose said thickly.

"Right. Got a little bug, that's all. We were getting worried you weren't coming back."

"How long have we been gone?"

"The last dimension jump—the one that burned out the dimension cannon—was two weeks ago."

"Two weeks? I've been gone _two__weeks_?"

Pete looked up then, and seemed to notice the Doctor-clone for the first time. "You're here."

"Jackie didn't tell you?"

"She said something about the Doctor abandoning the Doctor on the beach and leaving with someone called Donna and then the Doctor and Rose and her being stranded on the beach and could I hurry up and send someone out. I didn't understand. Still don't. How could you be here if you left?"

John Smith looked at Paul, then at Pete, then made for Pete's office. Pete and Rose followed, and Rose sat in a chair in the corner while the one-heart wonder tried to explain to Pete Tyler his entire—though very brief—life story.

She didn't realise she'd fallen asleep until Pete shook her awake. "Hm?"

"You should go home, Rose. Go home, have a nap and eat something. Tell your mum I'll probably be home late, okay?"

"I'm fine, Dad. Really. Where is he?"

"He? Oh, he's down in Medical for his FPE. He'll be done in another hour or so."

"They'll dissect him!" Rose started up out of the chair. "I'm going down there."

"Rose, he's assured me he's physiologically indistinguishable from a human now. You need to go home."

"I'll be fine."

"You fell asleep in my office."

"Yeah, and now I'm fine." She forces a smile. "I'll tell Mum you'll be home late. Don't worry about me. I'm just going to go down to Medical and make sure he's okay."

"Rose, he'll be fine. You go on home. I'll send someone with him."

Rose shook her head. "I'm not going. What if he runs into aliens on the way home?"

Pete sighed. "If you two run into aliens on the way home, tell the aliens to circle round and come back tomorrow. You need some rest."

"I'll rest, Dad. Really, I will," she promised, hugging Pete tightly. She strode out of the office, waving a hand at Paul's farewell. The lift ran far too slow for her liking, and she started to wonder if he would leave without her, but when she got to Medical, he was just finishing up. Rose was amazed to find that the clock on the wall said it was nearly four in the afternoon: she'd slept in that chair for three hours. She stood in the lobby until John Smith came out, dressed in that awful blue suit. She'd have to talk to Jackie about taking him shopping, and soon.

"You're awake," he said casually, buttoning his jacket.

"Yeah, I am, and we're going home." She turned on her heel and walked away.

"Home?" he asked, trotting to catch up with her.

"The Tyler estate, yeah."

He cringed visibly at the thought of having to stay under the same roof as Jackie Tyler. "Do we have to? I mean, can't I just find a–a hotel or something?"

"Maybe Torchwood'll put you up in a flat in a couple of days, but for now, you're staying at my parents' house. Dad already had the guest room made up for you." She punched the buttons on the lift and the doors slid shut. A movement of light on the metal button plate caught her eye, and she could have sworn she saw a man's face staring back at her with terror in his eyes. She jumped back involuntarily.

"What's wrong, Rose?"

"Nothing. I just—I thought I saw a face there, on the metal."

"A face?"

"A man."

"What did he look like?"

"Look, there wasn't anything there, alright? Probably just my imagination, since I haven't had a decent night's sleep in ages." She continued to stare at the metal, as if the illusion would appear again, but all she saw as the lift descended was the leg of her old, dirty jeans.


	3. The Woman in the Mirror

**Chapter ****Three**

**The ****Woman ****in ****the ****Mirror**

"Rose, honey, wake up. You've got to eat or you'll pass out again."

"Huh?" Rose blinked and opened her eyes. The world was dark, but she could make out the faint outline of her mother on the edge of the bed. "Mum?"

"The Doctor says you fainted in the car on the way home. I knew I should have told your dad to wait till tomorrow. I told him he could do the paperwork tonight when he gets home, but he wanted the Doctor to come in straight away." Jackie smoothed Rose's hair.

"What time is it?"

"It's about eleven. You slept almost six hours. You need to eat; you haven't had a bite all day."

"Mum, I'm fine," Rose mumbled, turning her face back into her pillow. Now that they'd left Torchwood, Rose felt perfectly content to shut out the world and sleep for a few years.

"It's no use, Jackie. She'll do what she wants. Don't get up, Rose," came a familiar voice. Rose started up. The man who looked like the Doctor (but wasn't, Rose told herself firmly) stood in the now-open doorway, carrying a tray.

"D—" She stopped herself and sank back into the bedding, closing her eyes. She heard the dishes rattle when he set the tray down, and the click of the door against the jamb. "Is he going to change out of that horrible suit?"

Jackie sighed. "He _refuses_ to take it off. Says it's fine. Indestructible."

"Rubbish," Rose grumbled. "I'll eat, I promise."

"If it's not gone when I get back, I'll have to feed it to you. And your brother wants to see you, too, but I told him he'd have to wait till morning."

Rose sighed. Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth, had one weakness, her Achilles' heel, the kryptonite of her existence (though, in this world, Superman's weakness was always argonite): Anthony Peter Tyler. It wasn't just because he was a sweet, adorable child, or because he had dimples and freckles and red hair and bright blue eyes. It was mostly because she, Rose Tyler, had loved him immensely from the day he was born. "Is he in bed already?" she asked. Tony was the only person for whom Rose would get out of bed at any hour of the night.

"Sleeping like a rock, thanks to the Doctor." Jackie stood up. "Be back in a bit, love."

As soon as the door shut behind Jackie, Rose realised she _was_ hungry. As she ate, she found out how boring eating actually is when you're alone in the pitch dark with nothing to keep you company. She finished most of the food on the tray, and her stomach felt full enough, but she still had that feeling of incompleteness, like there was something she was missing. She remembered the feeling, back when she'd stayed in that hotel in Norway. She got up—a bit too fast at first, and had to try again—and peeked out the door. She wasn't surprised to see him sitting against the wall on the other side of the hallway, his nose in a book.

"You're actually reading," she remarked, and he looked up. "You used to just pick up books, thumb the pages, and the information went straight to your head."

"Did I?" he asked sarcastically.

Rose blinked. "Well... he did, anyway. Did I really faint?"

He shrugged. "Close enough." His reticence led Rose to believe she probably hadn't just fainted clean away. "I guess it was more like... you fell asleep. _Really_ fast."

Rose nodded thoughtfully. "Hm." She turned away and went into her bathroom, leaving the door open a bit. She made use of the toilet and scrubbed her hands a good long while, trying to get all the dirt off of them and realising she still needed a shower. She looked in the mirror, but the face that stared back at her was not her own. Instead she saw a woman with bushy brown hair and tears on her face. Rose blinked, but when she opened her eyes, the woman was still there. The woman in the mirror mouthed something Rose couldn't understand before she flickered and disappeared. Rose squeaked when the woman disappeared.

"Rose?" asked the Doctor—the _human_ Doctor, Rose corrected.

She opened her bathroom door, and he was standing in her bedroom door, the light from the hallway making his hair glow as it shone past him into her room. "I—there was a woman. In the mirror," she said quietly.

He just _looked_ at her with that face, and she wanted to scream.

"It wasn't _me_. She had bushy hair."

"Was she moving?"

"She said something, but I couldn't hear anything. It was just an illusion."

"Did you see yourself in the mirror at all?"

"No. Just her. I don't know who she is. I've never seen her before."

"Do you feel tired at all?"

"I'm not hallucinating! This is the third time it's happened in the last two days. I saw something in my coffee—I thought I did—at the hotel this morning, and then there was the thing on the elevator, and now this." She was shaking a little. "What's going on?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. You said she said something. What did she say?"

"I don't know. I told you, I couldn't hear her. And I'm rubbish at lip-reading."

"Do you want me to have a look at your mirror?"

"What're you gonna do?"

"Just going to check for psychic signal residues."

"But you don't have a sonic screwdriver."

"I still have a Time Lord brain, and I can probably pick up psychic signals."

Rose nodded. "'Kay. I'm going to take the dishes to the kitchen while you do that, then."

"No, you're not. You're going to lay down and rest up."

Rose picked up the tray and went to the kitchen anyway. When she came back, she heard a familiar noise coming from the bathroom: the distinct sound of a sonic device. "What're you doing in there, anyway?" she asked.

"Nothing much," he called back. Rose noticed that the sonic noise stopped. "I couldn't pick anything up in there." He made his way to the door, but Rose was quicker. She stood very close to him and raised herself up on her toes, balancing herself with her hands on his chest.

"You just think you're so clever," she murmured into his ear. "But do you really think I don't know?" She reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "Oh, what's this?" she asked, stepping back a bit and holding up the screwdriver.

He looked guilty.

"You stole the sonic screwdriver?"

"Yeah."

"You _stole_ the _sonic __screwdriver_?"

He shrugged. "It's not like he can't get another one."

Rose shook her head. "I can't believe you stole it!"

"Give it back," he said, reaching for the device in question.

"No!" Rose snatched it away. "You can't just _steal_ a sonic screwdriver. I'm confiscating it. Maybe you can have it back later."

"Rose Tyler, give me back my sonic screwdriver."

"'S not yours."

"Yes, it is!"

"No, it's not."

"Rose, come on. I stole the sonic screwdriver, so you're going to punish me by stealing it from _me_?"

"Yes, I am."

He huffed and walked out of the room.

"And don't you go getting any ideas about stealing it back!" she called after him.

Rose spent much of the night staring at the sonic screwdriver and letting tears soak into her pillow, and didn't fall asleep until just before dawn.


	4. The Woman in the Elevator

**A/N: I'll be posting these pretty much as I finish them. I'm really bad at posting on a regular schedule, but it's flowing pretty well and I have a basic outline. I'm shooting for seven, maybe nine chapters. Anyway, enjoy!**

**Also, lots of love and cookies to my beta and bestie, EnoughToTemptMe.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter<strong>** 4**

**The ****Woman ****in ****the ****Elevator**

Rose washed her hands in the bathroom sink, staring at the mirror she'd covered up with a towel. She'd had to call in sick for three days now because she couldn't go anywhere any more. Anything reflective was like a TV screen, stuck on the same channel with the curly-haired woman.

"Rose, honey, you've got to let the Doctor check this out," Jackie had said to her earlier that morning.

"He's not the Doctor, Mum," Rose had said, for what felt like the thousandth time. "I don't know who he is. He's just... I don't know."

Jackie had said she didn't think that was fair to either Doctor. Rose had shot back something about none of this being fair. That had incited a row which lasted for the better part of half an hour, until Pete had called and Jackie had had to leave.

Rose picked up her most recent novel and stretched out on the sofa. She was just getting engrossed when someone knocked on the door. She knew who was knocking—only one other person would be at her flat at this hour—and she was tempted to just pretend she was asleep.

"Rose, I know you're not asleep," the Doctor-clone said through the door.

Rose sighed. "It's unlocked," she called.

He came in and shut the door behind him. "I need to talk to you."

Rose didn't look up from her book. "So talk."

"Not until you put the book down."

Rose heaved a melodramatic sigh and lowered the book.

"Torchwood's giving me my own flat."

"Good for you."

"I'm working in the Alpha Division."

"Great."

He was silent for half a minute then, as if he was waiting for Rose to say something more. When it was clear she had nothing to say, he asked, "Are you going to do something about the mirrors?"

Rose just shrugged.

"Do you think I'm not clever enough to fix it?"

"I don't want you to fix it."

"You always want me to fix it."

"No, I don't."

He put his hands in his pockets, staring at the floor. "You want _him_ to fix it."

Rose didn't answer.

He looked up, his expression decidedly neutral. "Okay. Have it your way." He opened the door. Before he left, he looked back at her and said, "I still mean what I said."

She didn't need to ask what he meant. Rose looked away from him, and he closed the door gently on his way out. _Just __like __that_, Rose thought. Now she could forget he existed. She'd never have to have another reminder of the man who'd left her on a freezing cold beach in Norway.

Except...

Rose reached into her bag on the floor and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, the one the Doctor's lookalike had stolen. It was no use, she thought. He was never going to come back for her. He'd as good as said so on that beach. Rose had just chosen to ignore that bit. He didn't think he deserved her. Even this one didn't think he deserved her.

She tossed the book on the floor and left her flat, sonic screwdriver in hand. The doppelgänger hadn't gotten far. "_Are_ you clever enough to fix it?" she called after him.

He stopped and turned around. "You don't want me to fix it."

"He's not coming back," she said, closing the gap between them.

"No, he's not."

Rose held out the screwdriver. "Don't think this changes anything." Movement out of the corner of her eye caught Rose's attention. She realised they were standing next to the elevator, and the huge metal doors were reflecting the curly haired woman again.

"Rose?"

"It's her. But I can't understand what she's saying."

"Rose, it's just the door."

Rose reached out a hand, thinking that if she touched the door, maybe she could hear something, but the image vanished before her fingers met the metal. "I just... I want to help her."

"It's just an image."

"But she's scared. Maybe it's a distress call."

He pointed the screwdriver at the door, then at Rose. "That's what I thought."

"What?"

"Nothing. The screwdriver isn't getting _anything_." He inspected it, pressing the buttons and pointing it at various objects. "Just the usual psychic energy. On the low end of the range, too..." He launched into one of his technical monologues which were so familiar to Rose. She was so distracted by the image of the curly-haired woman that she didn't notice she'd thought of this man and the Doctor who'd left as the same person.

"Rose?"

"Sorry. Psychic energy. Sonic screwdriver. Something about..." Rose waved a hand vaguely.

"It might be a distress call, I said."

"Oh. Okay. What're we going to do?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't have the TARDIS." Rose realised he was lost without that bigger-on-the-inside blue box. She put a hand on his arm.

"It's okay." She straightened up and pushed a hand through her hair. "If it's a distress call, someone else'll hear it, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah." His reticence wasn't entirely new to Rose, but the abrupt change of subject she was used to expecting never came. He just stood there with his sonic screwdriver in his hand, staring off into space.

Rose stood in front of him and watched that familiar face adopt an expression of helplessness, something she wasn't used to seeing. It unsettled her. "Cup of tea?" she offered.

He looked at her, blinked once, then laughed. "The world goes bonkers, and you humans stop for tea." He shook his head. "I'd love a cup of tea."


	5. Human

**A/N: I never noticed that those silly Share buttons move my titles over into awkward places.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter<strong>** 5**

**Human**

Rose sat at the kitchen island, a bag of ice in one hand. She honestly hadn't meant to touch the hot stove, but when the only way to make tea and keep her sanity was to make it with her eyes closed, accidents were bound to happen.

"How long has it been like this?" asked John Smith, setting a cup of hot tea in front of her. He'd smoothly manoeuvred his way in front of her and picked up on the tea, forcing her away from the stove without saying a word about it.

"Since the morning after I saw the woman in the bathroom mirror. She comes and goes, and half the time it's someone else. It's just weird, seeing things in the bathroom mirror." Rose stirred her steaming tea absently. They sat in silence for a while, sipping their respective teas. Rose watched him, saw his eyes darken with each passing minute of silence. She touched his hand. "You'll think of something."

He looked up and nodded. "Course I will. Just haven't yet."

"Well, you're a human now. We're not as quick as Time Lords, you know."

"Human body, Time Lord brai—wait..." His eyes lit up. "Donna said it, when we were on the Crucible. She said she had that little bit of human, the gut instinct that humans have."

"So do you think you can get this thing out of my head?"

He plucked the sonic screwdriver out of a pocket and trained it on her. "Still no readings. There's nothing out of the ordinary."

"Maybe it's something ordinary," Rose suggested, though she didn't believe it.

"Do _you_ think it's something ordinary?"

"No."

He made a vague gesture with his tea cup. "Will you let me know next time it happens?"

Rose nodded and pushed a smallish notebook across the counter toward him. "I started writing them down. I thought maybe if I kept track of them, I could find a pattern."

The human-Doctor grinned. "Just like old times."

The chill that settled in the room at that comment might have frozen the tea, but Rose didn't need to say anything. They both knew how she felt about him.

"He shouldn't have left you," John said.

"It doesn't matter. He's got Donna. They'll travel the universe, and he'll get over me eventually."

John Smith shook his head. "He doesn't have Donna."

"What? What do you mean? What happened to her?"

"Donna Noble was a _human_, Rose. She had a Time Lord's _mind_ inside her own. You remember when you looked into the TARDIS, don't you? You almost died. It was going to burn up your brain. Same thing would happen to Donna."

"No! No, no, no, no, no! Donna can't die!"

"It _would_, but it didn't. He'll have done the only thing he can. He'll have removed her memories of him, of every single thing they did. Anything remotely tied to him will be gone. Donna Noble will go back to her ordinary life as a temp in Chiswick."

Rose wasn't surprised that she was crying again. "He's all alone..."

"Yeah."

"Did he know?"

"How do you think I know?"

Rose just shook her head. "He _knew_, and he left me behind." She looked at John Smith. "You share his mind, yeah?"

"Yep."

"Then why'd he leave me in _this_ universe? Of all the places in all of reality, why here?"

"Your parents are here. Your family. And someone had to look after me. And... I think he knew it'd be better for you."

"Better _how_? He's _gone_!" Rose could feel her face burning.

"You don't get it, do you, Rose?" John Smith retorted angrily. "I _came_ from him. I have all of his memories, all of his habits, all of his DNA. I came from his bloody _hand_! _I__. __Am__. __The__Doctor_!"

"You're not him!"

"No, I'm not! I'm _better_ than him. I'm not a pompous Time Lord who thinks he has to preserve the order of the universe! I'm a _human_ who's going to die sometime."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"I love you, Rose Tyler, with all of my one human heart, and I can say it, because I _am_ a human." That the Doctor—the one who'd left—would never have said so hung in the air like a grenade on a balloon. Rose Tyler and John Smith locked angry gazes for a moment, staring each other down, before the latter got up and walked out the door, leaving his cup of tea half full. Rose sat at the counter, staring into her tea until it was too cold to drink. She went to bed then, skipping dinner and leaving the cups on the counter.


	6. Cops and Robbers

**A****/****N****: ****I****'****m ****really ****looking ****forward ****to ****reading ****all ****your ****theories ****after ****this ****chapter****...**

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><p><strong>Chapter<strong>** 6**

**Cop ****an****' ****Robba**

Jackie watched Pete and Tony through the window while she fixed dinner. She'd just put a casserole in the oven when the doorbell rang. Jackie set the kitchen timer and went to answer it, but Lucy had already let their visitor in.

"Doctor! Nice to see you!" Jackie noticed that Rose wasn't with him—not that it surprised her—but she knew better than to comment. "Pete's out back with Tony." She gestured toward the back yard.

"Actually," he shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, "I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh. Okay. Come on into the kitchen. I'll put the tea on."

"Thanks." He wasn't goign to argue with Jacqueline Tyler. Not today. He didn't think the universe was big enough for him to handle having _both_ Tyler women angry with him. He sat backward on the bar stool while Jackie started the tea.

When he was silent for a good while, Jackie asked, "How are you, Doctor?"

He shook his head. "Rose and I..."

"You had a fight?" she asked, unsurprised.

He nodded slowly. "Yeah."

"With shouting?"

"Oh, yes."

"Anything get broken?"

"No."

Jackie set a mug of tea in front of him. "Don't take it too hard, Doctor. She'll come round."

He sighed. "She wants me to be _him_, and I'm not. Not exactly. She gave me back my screwdriver. Invited me for tea. And then..." He gestured vaguely with his hands.

"Just let her work it out on her own. 'S what I do." Rose and this Doctor fighting didn't surprise or worry her. "How's she doing with the mirrors?"

He ran a hand over his face. "She's still seeing them. I don't know what's causing it. Not yet."

"You'll work it out," Jackie assured him. _You__'__d__better_, she added silently.

The Doctor sat in silence, stirring his tea, but showing no interest in drinking it. Jackie let him be, busying herself with finishing dinner.

She insisted the Doctor stay for dinner, and afterward, she took Tony upstairs for his bath, leaving Pete and the Doctor to themselves.

"How are you holding up?" Pete asked.

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, sighing. "Was it hard, you and Jackie?"

"Yeah," Pete replied simply. After half a minute, he added, "It was hard at first for me to look at her and not expect her to be _my_ Jackie. It took me a while to accept that she is a different person. Not completely, but still different. Things got better once we'd worked that out."

The Doctor nodded. The course of his relationship with Rose Tyler rested solely on his shoulders. He thought maybe he'd prefer the fate of the universe right now. He was used to that, but this... this was new. He'd have to wait for her to come to it on her own. He'd have to wait for her. Waiting was not his strong point... even with Rose Tyler. He had no TARDIS to occupy him while he waited, or to take him straight to the end of the waiting. He'd have to wait like every other human being on the planet.

"Thanks," he said to Pete.

"Any time."

"I'd better be off. Tell Jackie thanks for dinner."

"You're going?" Jackie asked from the doorway. Tony peeked out from behind her leg.

"Mummy," Tony mumbled into his fingers. "Can Docker Smiff read me a stowy?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Jackie moved so that Tony was standing in the doorway.

The little boy looked up at the Doctor, who grinned and crouched down to his level. "Tony Tyler!"

Tony smiled shyly and mumbled, "Canooreemeatowy?"

"A story? I think I can do that."

Tony beamed and scampered off up the stairs. When Jackie peeked in on the two of them later, she smiled. The mysterious Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, sitting in a rocker, reading a bedtime story to a small blond boy like he'd been reading bedtime stories to children for years.

* * *

><p>Over the next week, Rose started to get used to seeing "the others" in every surface that passed for a mirror. She could even make tea with her eyes open. She went back to Torchwood, but now that the dimension cannon was blown out, Rose didn't see the point of working there any more, even if Pete did want her to liaise with passing extraterrestrials. She considered paying a visit to the Alpha Division one day, but she had no idea where it was, and she wasn't sure she wanted to talk to John Smith anyway. He definitely hadn't made an effort to talk to her after their fight.<p>

But then again, Rose wasn't answering her phone very often, which was probably why Jackie showed up on Saturday morning with Tony in tow. Tony had one of his toy cars in hand, and Jackie was carrying a paper grocery sack—plastic sacks were practically unheard of here.

"Mum! What're you doing here?"

"Making breakfast for you, dear! I know you haven't had any yet. And besides, Tony was begging to come over all week."

Rose sighed. She was powerless to refuse her little brother.

"Rose! Lookit!" Tony held up his toy police car. "Docker Smiff gived it to me." Tony beamed and pressed a button underneath the car. The lights on top of the car lit up and the car made a noise that was half-police siren, half-TARDIS whoosh. Rose sighed.

"Doctor Smith?" she asked, looking to Jackie.

"He comes to visit some days. Tony likes him."

"You ought to come round for dinner next week. I'm sure your dad would like to see you, since you don't show up for work, he says."

"I do show up for work! I just leave early most days, cause there's not much to do." Rose turned and focused her attention on the boy who was tugging urgently at her fingers. "Yes, Tony?"

"Play cop an' robba wiv me!"

"How do you ask?"

"Peeeeese play cop an' robba wi' me, Rose?" Tony gave her his most charming smile—a trick he'd picked up from Pete, probably. Rose smiled and acquiesced, sitting on the floor and "running" her fingers around the floor while Tony tried to run her hand over with the car. The game turned into Tickle Tony, and the toy car was temporarily forgotten, until Jackie announced breakfast.

Tony sat on a stack of magazines and got maple syrup all over his hands and shirt and the table while Rose picked at her pancakes and fruit. The toy car sat in a place of honour just out of Tony's immediate reach.

Rose spent the entire meal trying to figure out who the curly-haired woman was. She'd seen the woman so often, she'd gotten a pretty fair sketch compiled, even though she was usually rubbish at art. After Jackie and Tony left, she pulled out her notebook and looked at the sketch again. She pulled a square mirror out of the back of the book and set it on the table, waiting. Nothing happened for a while, and then Rose saw a man in what resembled a special ops uniform, complete with a black beret. She flipped to another page and read her previous descriptions of him. Nothing had changed. A redheaded woman appeared; she also wasn't new. Then came a scene Rose had seen a hundred times: a man in a suit—the one she'd first seen on the elevator—held out a strip of something and started talking and gesturing. He looked a bit frazzled. Then the whole thing faded out in a flash of green.


	7. Broken

**A****/****N****: ****This ****chapter****'****s ****kind ****of ****long****. ****Like ****a ****treat****, ****'****cause ****it****'****s ****Saturday****.**

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><p><strong>Chapter<strong>** 7**

**Broken**

Rose sighed and closed her notebook, shutting the mirror inside it as well. She swirled her tea in its cup. Finally, she slammed it down onto its coaster and stood up. She'd been avoiding for too long. She shoved the notebook in her bag, threw on a pair of jeans and a jumper, and walked the few blocks to the building where John Smith lived. Part of her almost hoped he wasn't home.

He was, and he buzzed her up without a word. She took the stairs up to his third-floor flat. The door was ajar when she got there, and she pushed it open slowly. "Hello?"

"In the kitchen," he said. He sounded tired. Rose looked to either side of the entryway, moving through the flat in search of the kitchen. "Left."

Rose turned left and found a small kitchen tucked away in the corner. She thought immediately of the console room in the TARDIS, the way the room was set up around the hexagonal table. She nodded. "I like it."

He sat at the furthest end of the table with his glasses on, staring at some gadget or other.

"Please tell me you got permission for that."

He looked up. "Well, I... mostly..."

Rose sighed. "I just thought you might want to have a look at some sketches."

"I didn't know you were an artist," he commented, looking back down at the contraption on the table.

"I'm not. But I thought if you could see them, maybe it would help."

Something either clicked or broke on the contraption. He dropped his sonic screwdriver on the table and sat back. "Alright. Let's have a look."

Rose handed him the notebook, open to the sketch of the woman, but kept the mirror. He looked at it for less than a second and handed it back to her. "What was that for?" she asked. "You barely looked at it."

"Yup."

"Are you gonna tell me what you found out?"

"I know her, Rose. I've met her before." He turned his attention back to the contraption. "Well... _he_ met her. I was a hand in a jar then... I expect I got the memory during the metacrisis."

"Who is she?"

He didn't answer.

"Is she important?"

"Oh, she's very important. Not to me. She's nothing to me, but she's _very_ important to _him_."

"I don't understand."

He took off his glasses and looked at Rose. "The woman you've been seeing in the mirror is important to a man with two hearts and a face that doesn't look like this one. When I met—no, when _he_ met her, she told him something. Something nobody could possibly know about him."

"You're not making any sense."

"I know. I don't even understand it. But you know time doesn't go in a straight line. It's all wibbly-wobbly," he waved his hands in the air, "and it never really travels in a straight line."

"Who. Is. She?"

"Her name is River Song."

Rose blinked. "Who's River Song?"

"That's just it. I don't know. When I—he—it was after you'd come here. There was a note, on the psychic paper, so me and Donna went to The Library and—"

"What library?"

"No, no. _The_ Library. Biggest library in the universe. It's its own planet. Anyway, me and Donna went and River Song came there, and she knew me. She kept talking about how she knew me and how I'd know her later, and—" He shook his head. "I don't really understand it fully, but from what I understand, she met me backwards."

"I still don't understand."

"Okay... Um... Ah! You know after a kids' game of football, all the players line up and congratulate each other by walking in different directions? It's like that, only instead of different people, it's the same two people, only at different points in their lives. So early in her life, I was older, and early in my life—when I met her—she was older."

"So she's like Merlin."

"Yes. No, not like Merlin. I _think_ we're actually travelling backward of each other. Well... _they_ are. I'm not."

"So this woman I keep seeing in the mirror is someone who died in a library some time ago?"

"Well, yes. And no. She died there, yes, but you're apparently seeing her when she's younger."

"So who was she—is she—to you?"

"No one. She's nobody to me."

"But you said she was important."

"She's important to _him_. Very important, actually. But not to me."

"But you're him."

He smiled his cheeky smile. "No, I'm not."

"But..." Rose realised then that he _wasn__'__t_ the Doctor. But he was. He was like a parallel Doctor. She remembered waiting so long for Pete to realise that her mum wasn't exactly the same, and for her mum to realise that this Pete wasn't exactly the same either. She sat down in the chair with a thunk.

"Rose... are you okay?" asked the parallel Doctor.

"You're like my dad."

"Sorry?"

"You're still the Doctor... but you're not the same Doctor. Like Pete—not the one I met, but still Pete. That's what that River Song woman means, doesn't it? That man in the suit, that's the other Doctor. He regenerated into that man, and River Song is important to _him_. But you... you can't regenerate."

"No, I can't. One heart. One life." He held up one finger, then looked at it and frowned. "But why on earth would River Song be communicating with _you_? She doesn't even know who you are."

"You didn't say anything about me?"

He pulled out his screwdriver, pointing it at her as he spoke. "It was a busy day! Carnivorous swarms, four thousand people missing out of a library, self-destructing planets, shadows... that, and she _never_ shuts up!" He inspected his screwdriver, shaking his head.

Rose smiled her characteristic smile, with her tongue between her teeth. "Was there running?" she asked, moving closer to him.

"Course there was. There were carnivorous swarms! _In_ the shadows! Will you hold still?" He ran the screwdriver around her head a couple of times.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to fix your mirrors, Rose. Now hold still a minute."

Rose sighed, and stood still. "D'you want a mirror? I mean, maybe if I look in the mirror and see her, it might help."

He thought for a minute. "Sit in the chair." He grabbed a wire hanger off of a chair and bent it into a triangle shape. "Where's the mirror you were talking about?"

Rose pulled it out and handed it to him. He set the bent-up hanger on the table and propped the mirror up on it.

"Clever."

"That's me. Tell me when you see her."

Rose stared at the mirror. There was a flash of green and the woman—River Song—appeared, talking. "She's talking, but I can't understand what she's saying. I just wish I could hear her." Rose reached her hand out and touched the mirror.

"—dying. Please, please help. The Doctor is dying. Please, please help. The Doctor is—"

"No. No, it can't be."

"Rose?" He reached a hand toward her.

"I can hear her, but... it can't be true!" She pushed his hand away, but in the instant their skin touched, he saw River Song in the mirror as well, and heard only one word: _dying_.

"Rose, let it go."

Rose gripped the edge of the mirror. "He can't be dead."

"Rose, you have to let go of the mirror!" He was pointing his screwdriver at her.

"I'll never see him again!"

"You'll never see him again anyway, Rose. Just let go of the mirror!"

Rose whirled on him and flung the mirror across the room. It hit the wall and shattered into a hundred pieces that rained onto the floor. The sound of the impact jolted both of them. Rose's ire liquefied and she started to sob. The Doctor dropped the sonic screwdriver back into his pocket and stepped toward Rose. She shook her head, grabbed her bag, and ran out the door.

She realised later that she'd left her notebook sitting on the table... the notebook with the story of how the Doctor died.


	8. Stories

**Chapter**** 8**

**Stories**

… _then __it __stuck __out __a __hand __and __there __was __a __green __flash __of __light__, __and __another__, __and __then __he __was __lying __dead __on __the __sand__. __The __ginger __girl __cried __a __lot__. __The __other __guy__—__I __think __he__'__s __Ginger__'__s __boyfriend __or __something__—__he __just __stood __there__. __And __the __woman__... __she __kind __of __reminded __me __of __the __Doctor__, __the __way __you __could __tell __he __was __dying __inside__, __but __he __just __went __on __taking __care __of __business __because __nobody __else __would__..._

The Doctor closed the book gently. He'd read the whole thing, but the only part that struck him was this part. The part where he—his parallel, rather—died. He'd done well enough with the rest of it. But if the Time Lord was dead... no, he told himself, it didn't mean anything. He had something to live for here and now. Better than that, he had something to fight for.

He heaved himself up out of his seat and went to find his little vacuum cleaner to clean up the glass dust, and a small cardboard box for the bigger shards. He took the glass out to the rubbish dumpster and went back to his flat, now uninterested in the Boskek genolexer that was sitting in pieces in his kitchen.

The cover of the book was so ordinary, it was almost impossible to believe it held so much. And Rose had seen it all. Rose! It had been three hours, forty-six minutes since she left. He hadn't even gone after her. He'd just stood there for a minute (two, actually, and thirteen seconds), and then picked up her notebook and just... read it. Pages and pages of Rose's handwriting and sketches. Then, because he could hardly believe it, he'd read the whole thing over again. He sighed and took his jacket off the hook. If the contents of that book were what Rose had been seeing for two weeks, what she might still be seeing... He carried it securely under his arm and went to her flat. She didn't answer her buzzer, so he let himself in with his screwdriver. At the door, he knocked a few times, but got no answer.

"Rose? Are you in there?" He pulled out his mobile—a device he'd started carrying at Pete's insistence—and called Jackie. "Jackie, is Rose with you?"

"No, she's at her flat. Tony and I were just over there this morning."

"Okay, thanks." He hung up; he didn't want to explain, and Jackie hadn't started pestering him about it yet. He knocked on the door again. "Rose, I know you're in there. Please just let me in."

"You got into the building, didn't you?" came Rose's irritated voice from the other side of the door.

He turned the door and found it unlocked. Rose was curled up at one end of the sofa, eyes red-rimmed and wet. She stared blankly across the room.

"You left your notebook."

She didn't answer.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. "I looked inside."

More blank staring.

"I didn't know that's what you'd seen."

She looked at him.

"Shall I make some tea?"

She shrugged and returned to her blank staring.

He walked over and crouched next to her. "Rose, I'm trying to help. I can't help if you don't say anything."

"He's dead."

"Rubbish."

"The other Doctor's _dead_. Gone."

"He's not dead. Trust me, I know him. He found a way out."

"How?"

"Oh, there are loads of ways to fake your own death. Loads more if you're a Time Lord. I mean, regeneration is basically faking your own death. Well... it's not really faking. It's cheating, but—"

"He did."

"Did what? Regenerated?"

"And then it shot him again. I left that bit out."

"Well, I dunno, maybe it was a trick."

"He's dead, okay?"

"Okay." The Doctor sat on the floor. "He's dead. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I'll—" She stopped. "I can't do anything."

He brushed a few stray hairs out of her eyes. "If there was even the slightest chance we could do something, I would do it in a heartbeat. But we can't. Dead or alive, we can only do one thing: move on."

"But—" Rose sniffled. "The Doctor's dead."

"Yes." He set the notebook on the table. "Here's your book back. Just in case."

Rose went back to staring blankly at the wall. The Doctor stayed for a few more minutes, but Rose was being stubbornly unresponsive, so he said something about "later" and left her flat.

* * *

><p>In an obscure corner of the universe, the last gap between realities coughed once and snapped shut, leaving a tiny shuttle and its single pilot lost in an unfamiliar world.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Keep an eye out for the sequel to this story, _The Ticking Tower_, which I hope to start posting within the next week or so.**


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